We arrived here in 1990. My husband, Edoardo Ventimiglia, was a documentary filmmaker in Rome, working in the old family company—his grandfather had been Hitchcock’s first cameraman. I, Carla Benini, was an agronomist: born in Trentino, I dreamed of working in the countryside while spending my time between offices, airplanes, and hotels. Slowly but surely, we lost interest in our city lives.

The 72 hectares of our estate straddle the municipalities of Sorano and Pitigliano. The area is technically classified as "hill country" in terms of elevation, but it appears as a succession of highlands, intersected by deep ravines carved into the tuff by intermittent streams.

We are on the outer edges of the volcanic basin of Lake Bolsena, and tuff is the guiding material here: the vineyards are planted in tuff, the houses are built from tuff, the wine cellar is dug into the tuff, and in the middle of a field stands the Sassotondo—a weather-worn tuff stone that gives our estate its name and s